Online Journal of the Hudson Valley Coalition for Life.
"Every human being is called to solidarity in a world battling between life and death" - Ignacio Ellacuria, Jesuit martyr in El Salvador

January 30, 2009

This video has been seen over half a million times on youtube. "Based on a true story", evidently about rapper Nick Cannon. The young woman is played by Tatyana Ali, who played Ashley Banks in Fresh Prince of Belair.

January 29, 2009

With the inauguration of President Obama already a fleeting memory, men, women and children decended on Washington, D.C. on January 22 and reclaimed the streets for life - at least for one day. They were there to march and speak out in defense of the voiceless ones - the 4,000 children aborted per day in America.

This year's March for Life marked the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand.

The Rally on the Mall was longer than usual, with the March beginning a few minutes before 2 p.m. The last of the Marchers did not pass the Supreme Court until after 4:15. the March for Life crowd has grown enormously in the last 15 years; where it used to take 50 minutes for all the Marchers to crest Constitution Ave., it's now over two and a quarter hours! Conservatively, we think there were 150,000 people.

The youthful flavor to the March in recent years was again on display with youth groups, schools, religious organizations and families all proud to be carrying banners for life. The post-abortive Silent No More contingent was noticeably larger this year. At least eighty men and women spoke in front of the steps of the Supreme Court about the personal experiences that have led them to be "silent no more" about the terrible effects of their own abortion experiences.

The March also ushered in a potentially draconian era under the most pro-abortion President the U.S. has ever seen. We have already seen a reversal of the so-called "Mexico City policy" that once again, and despite economic gloom and debt, opens up new taxpayer funding of abortions overseas. With a ban that began in the Regan administration, this policy has been ping-ponged ever since, most recently with George Bush reinstating the ban and Barack Obama immediately squashing it and adding to our moral debt and taxpayer burden. So the Administration that said in its DNC plank that it wants to seek common ground and reduce abortions, has begun poorly. The candidate of "hope" has heaped another payment due on American citizens' backs and quickly added to abortion's numbers.

But in D.C. the mood was upbeat. The Hudson Valley Coalition for Life arrived with two buses, including St. Teresa of Avila of Sleepy Hollow, St. Theresa's in Briarcliff Manor, St. Augustine's in Ossining, and numerous adults from many parishes.

Theresa Bonopartis, director of Lumina, and Sr. Lucy of the Sisters of Life

Pastor Fr. Michael Keane of Holy Name of Mary in Croton, was a former teacher at Our Lady of Lourdes H.S.. The high school sent 62 students down from Poughkeepise plus teachers, plus parents. A great showing for a high school, from a long distance.

The number of women and men speaking out through the "Silent No More" campaign has grown ...

Fr. Pavone and Janet Morano of Priest for Life are in the center of this Silent No More group

Notice the Franciscan, who has marched for several years -

Italy, Germany and France (below) are regular attendees. And the head of the prolife movement in Great Britain was one of the featured speakers at the Rally preceding the March.

Randall Terry, one of the original founders of Operation Rescue, did good work on his megaphone for several hours. Terry called on the marchers to take their signs to their local abortion mills and pray - "you will save lives..."

He was one of the leading Catholic voices in the U.S. on medical ethics and was often quoted in the Catholic and secular media on the hot-button issues of the day, such as the Terri Schiavo life-support case, stem-cell research, all aspects of the abortion debate, reproductive technology and cloning.

"He was a top-notch moral theologian, highly regarded in the United States and in Rome," said Monsignor Joseph Giandurco, pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Suffern, who served with Smith on the seminary faculty for 12 years. "He corresponded with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now of course Pope Benedict XVI, on a number of sensitive issues over the years."

“We thank God today for this moment. You’re not going away, I’m not going away. This is our moment,” said Rev. Clenard Childress Jr., who rallied the crowd and led the 2 mile Walk.

Also speaking at the event were Diana Nagy, a singer who placed her son for adoption after becoming pregnant at 15, Karen Shablin of Feminists for Life, and Sister of Life Mother Agnes Mary. “We’ve made a lot of progress,” Nagy said, noting that 36 years after the Roe v. Wade decision, “abortion is at an all time low.”

“Let us pass on the love,” Mother Agnes Mary said. “Let us tell the truth, let us change the world.”

January 24, 2009

People involved in Operation Rescue, and other prolife direct actions will remember Jim McWilliams. We received word today that he has died. We don't know how old Jim was, but he was not young.

The following is from Richard Cowden-Guido:

With deep sorrow I pass the news, learned this morning from Chris Bell,that James Owen Patrick McWilliams has passed the vale.A pampered child, James descended into alcoholism in his twenties, &according to his own report, rose from it &, literally, a gutter, due tothe intercession of our Lady of Guadalupe.Perhaps thus due to his grasp of the soul's fragility, he was a devotedfriend of the unborn for many decades. An early participant in rescueswhere the children are killed, he was involved in some of the betterknown efforts, as well as many less famous. He rescued in Atlanta in '88and was one of only five who refused release after 40 days in jail there,in his case because he would not guarantee he would return for trial. Itwas in those months that Jim & I became close friends, through the threedaily rosaries we said with the many prisoners in Fulton County jails.I believe he was also arrested in the brutal & valiant West Hartfordeffort in '89, and know he was at Dobbs Ferry in '90, after which, alongwith some 40 others, he refused to give his name on the grounds that thestate had no right to request it, or arrest him. He accordingly stayed inValhalla jail for more than four months, until finally the statecapitulated and released him & the others according to the terms he &they established. That rescue remains the collective model outlined byJoan Andrews's original '86-'88 witness in Florida, should by God's grace& our response, rescue come to make its witness again. Should thathappen, it will do so sans one of its finest warriors.At the moment I do not know how Jim died, nor the funeral arrangements.McWilliams was unique, and colorful, as all who knew him can attest. Hewas troubled, as who is not, by many temptations throughout his life, andnot least in his later years; accordingly Masses, and prayers for hiseternal soul to our Lady of Guadalupe, would be an act of charity to becommended for his sake, and for ours.

Here is the response of Human Life International's president, Fr. Tom Euteneuer, which includes a fund-raising appeal -

President Obama Unleashes the Abortion Demon on the World's Poor

Dear Friends of Life,

Millions of death warrants have just been signed, sealed and delivered over to the world's powerful abortion lobby.

Please click here to send an emergency contribution that HLI will use to fight the abortion demon and uproot the culture of death around the world.

True to his word, President Obama has undone the "Mexico City policy" that kept your tax dollars from funding organizations that promote abortion around the world. This policy has protected the poor and oppressed of the world - especially those living in Third World countries - for the past eight years. Now that protection is gone!

Not surprisingly, pro-abortion extremists reacted to the news with glee. Their hypocrisy was more evident than normal. For example:

Gill Greer of the International Planned Parenthood Federation said: "For eight long years the global gag rule has been used by the Bush administration to play politics with the lives of poor women across the world. In rescinding this disastrous and unjust policy, President Obama has returned the United States to the international consensus on women's health."

His partner in crime, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America reacted this way: "With the stroke of a pen, President Obama has lifted the stranglehold on women's health across the globe. With President Obama, women in the U.S. and around the world have a president who puts protecting and strengthening women's health first."

If anyone is "playing politics with the lives of poor women across the world" it's heralds of the culture of death like Greer and Richards and Obama and Hillary Clinton. They have no intention of "protecting and strengthening women's health" as Richards falsely claims. Rather their goal is nothing less than to expand their power and impose abortion on the innocent and defenseless of the world.

As members of the Church Militant we must not let them succeed! The people of life must rise up and fight the malevolent abortion demon!

I have sent you this urgent issue of Spirit & Life because the international pro-life resistance movement is in a state of extreme crisis! It is up to us - the people of life - to unite in SOLIDARITY and protect our brothers and sisters in Christ who are about to undergo an abortion jihad the likes of which the world has never seen.

Of this much I can assure you:

Neither I nor any of our pro-life missionaries will abandon the world's innocent to those who seek to impose the evil of abortion on them.

But we cannot do this alone. We desperately need your immediate help, both your prayers and your financial support.

Your help is urgently needed because there is no way HLI can match the financial might of the United States government. It is too vast and too powerful.

However, HLI is more than a match for the leaders of the pro-abortion movement because we have two things going for us that our enemies will never have; namely, God's TRUTH and LOVE.

Your dollars are critically needed so that HLI's pro-life missionaries can ...

recruit more freedom fighters into the world's pro-life resistance movement

conduct critically needed pro-life training sessions for seminarians

equip local pro-life leaders with the materials needed to protect their people

organize local conferences to implement effective pro-life strategies

publish fact-filled books and pamphlets

arm the people with fully-documented proof that refutes the abortion lie

convene prayer congresses and vigils

research, write and distribute "Pro-life Talking Points"

As you consider how much to send today, remember this: The people NEVER ask for abortion. It is always imposed on them by elitists like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Gill Greer and Cecile Richards and others of their ilk.

To a person these are true pro-life champions! They are giving the last full measure of devotion to the innocent unborn of the world. Please help them! President Obama's abortion jihad against the poor, the oppressed and the unborn has already begun.

Thank you. God bless you. And please pray without unceasing! Invoke the divine intercession of St. Michael the Archangel. He is our surest defense against the wickedness and snares of the abortion demon.

The noontime local rally on January 22nd, done in complement with the hundreds of people who travelled to Washington for the March for Life, did receive a picture in the Journal News, but it doesn't appear to be in the online version.

The inauguration of a president who supports abortion rights fired up the annual March for Life yesterday, with activists warning of new, more liberal legislation and urging President Obama to view abortion as a civil-rights issue akin to slavery.

Signs read: "Yes we can -- eliminate abortion." One speaker took the microphone and called for anti-abortion "community organizers," a job the president held in Chicago. Another taunted Obama with references to one of his heroes.

Looking east at the thousands of marchers gathered from Fourth to Seventh streets on the Mall, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said Obama needed to be reminded "that the reason we built that monument to president Abraham Lincoln is because he saw the humanity in a slave that the Supreme Court said was not human." Nothing could make Obama less like Lincoln than "forgetting that the unborn are also little children of God," he added.

Police provided no estimate for the size of the crowd gathered on the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade. But anti-abortion leaders said they sensed a new intensity because of Obama and the new, more heavily Democratic Congress.

Deirdre McQuade, spokeswoman for Pro-Life Activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said turnout at the annual Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Northeast on Wednesday night filled the basilica's 16,000-person capacity and spill into two overflow buildings. A morning youth concert and Mass yesterday at Verizon Center also filled up -- there were 20,000-plus seats -- and crowds were sent to nearby churches.

"She has not been in Congress long, but she has always voted against the pro-life side," National Right to Life legislative director Douglas Johnson told LifeNews.com.

Gillibrand compiled a pro-abortion voting record during her brief tenure in the House of Representatives in part by voting for a measure to overturn the Mexico City Policy. That's the Bush administration protection making it so taxpayers don't have to fund groups that promote or perform abortions overseas.

Gillibrand also voted against an amendment to a federal spending bill that would have denied family planning funding to groups like Planned Parenthood because they also do abortions.

She also is a sponsor of the so-called Prevention First Act, a measure that would send even more federal funds to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

The new senator also upset pro-life advocates by repeatedly voting to force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research that involves the destruction of human life.

January 19, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Our hope is in the Lord and His goodness! Indeed, that hope is needed in a time when very dark clouds of abortion are gathering over the nation’s Capitol. It is evident to all who have eyes to see that those storm clouds will unleash a torrent of attacks upon life, marriage and family all over the world, and Human Life International (HLI) is bracing for the worst.

Barack Obama's dismal record and rhetoric on life issues truly indicates how he feels about these critical matters and what he plans to do once in office. Our nation just elected a man who, if it can be believed, is more extreme in his anti-life stance than such pro-abortion stalwarts as Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi. Until he was in the presidential campaign, he didn't even pretend to care about the opinions of those who believe every human life is sacred. We can expect more of that callous disregard for pro-life sentiments in areas of his administration which are more shielded from public opinion, such as foreign policy and the UN.

So what is the best response of the pro-life movement to the threat posed by an Obama administration?

First, all organizations that defend human life need to re-focus and recommit to their core missions. We at Human Life International will intensify our missionary efforts in other countries to thwart the Culture of Death through education, training, and activism while communicating with our supporters in the States the human cost of America's most destructive export - its anti-life agenda.

Second, we can be civil in discourse and strive to show respect for the office which President Obama holds, but we cannot give ONE SINGLE INCH on any life issue or allow the civility of our discourse to be interpreted as compromise. HLI will continue to be a strong advocate of a comprehensive and coherent position on the life issues which encompass not only abortion but contraception and sex education as well. The culture of death is a package deal; so should our response be to it.

Third, for far too long the pro-life movement has largely ignored the Hispanic populations. They contributed in large part to the election of Obama, and through deception or lack of awareness of the reality that is before them, they are rapidly compromising their core values as Christians. HLI is on the ground floor of a new initiative to bring Hispanics in this country together in a pro-life coalition, welcoming and serving this population which is inherently pro-life but which is being targeted by the death peddlers.

Finally, nothing is more important than prayer. It's not as if the Author of life is neutral on the questions of abortion, euthanasia, or embryo-destructive research. HLI will contribute to the overall force of prayer that is sweeping our nation right now in the form of 40 Days for Life and prayers for Obama’s conversion. We also invite all to join us in our St. Michael Prayer Campaign for the Conversion of Abortionists: http://www.hli.org/st_michael_prayer.html/

May He guide us in our efforts and strengthen us as we fight for life!

January 20, 2009

The ad is the first in a series to be released this year as part of a new educational campaign, titled precisely "Life: Imagine the Potential."

Brian Burch, executive director of CatholicVote.org, commented on the ad in a press statement: "Our message is simple: Abortion is the enemy of hope. The purpose of our new ad is to spread a message of hope about the potential of every human life, including the life of President-elect Obama."

"Each human life has dignity and worth," he added.

“Given the political climate, we acknowledge that the fight to protect human life faces an uphill climb," continued Burch. "For this reason, we developed an ad that we hope can transcend the political obstacles ahead, and provoke the consciences of our leaders and fellow Americans."

CatholicVote.org is a project of the Fidelis Center for Law and Policy.

The capital publication Congressional Quarterly reports that top Washington officials tell it that the incoming president will reverse the pro-life measure on his first day as president, on Wednesday.

When Obama overturns the limits on global abortions, he will do so over the objections of dozens of members of Congress.

"As a new administration begins, it is our hope you will work, as you have pledged, to create a new era of bi-partisan cooperation. We urge you to continue the Mexico City Policy, which separates abortion and family planning in America's foreign aid programs," the bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote Obama on Friday.

They say the policy "ensures that United States family planning funds are not co-opted by groups who promote abortion as a method of family planning. Such activities would send a wrong message overseas that the United States promotesabortion."

The members, led by Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, also say it is "insulting" to other nations to promote pro-abortion groups that lobby them to overturn long-standing pro-life laws based on their culture and heritage.

"We also have a responsibility to respect the laws of many developing countries who have laws prohibiting or restricting abortion. It is an insult to fund organizations that are intent on overturning those laws by promoting the Western ideology of abortion on demand," they said.

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"One effect of Obama's anticipated order will be to divert many millions of dollars away from groups that do not promote abortion, and into the hands of those organizations that are most militant in promoting abortion as a population-control method," Johnson explained.

"So, a president who not long ago told the American people that he wanted to reduce the number of abortions, is already effectively promoting the increased use of abortion as a means of population control," Johnson added.

President Reagan first put the Mexico City Policy in place and it is named for a population conference that took place in the Mexican capital in 1984 when he introduced it.

President George H.W. Bush continued the pro-life policy, President Clinton overturned it, and President George W. Bush kept it for eight years and threatened to veto any Congressional spending bill reversing it.

Under the Mexico City Policy, funding for family planning programs is not reduced.

January 19, 2009

On January 22 hundreds of thousands of our citizens will ignore frigid temperatures and march on Washington, D.C. to challenge newly-inaugurated, pro-abortion President Barack Obama and his administration on the 36th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion on demand. The march up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court will seek redress of this heinous human rights abuse, demanding President Obama openly refute his extremely radical vote in the Illinois Senate that permitted infanticide, and his view of the unplanned for unborn child as a "punishment" that abortion rectifies.

Buses from the Westchester/Putnam area will be filled with adults and students joining in solidarity with Americans from across the nation. "We are going to remind President Obama that hope is not spelled ABORTION, and change is not accomplished by overturning hard fought for protections for the unborn, or by promoting radical legislation like the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) that would challenge Constitutional rights and usurp parental rights," stated Hudson Valley Coalition for Life spokeswoman Brigid Faranda.

Abortion has victimized many women and denied human rights to 50 million and counting pre-born children growing in the womb. Abortion is the ultimate act of age discrimination.

"The continued destruction of human embryos and human cloning are unethical wastes of taypayer money with adult stem cell research curing now. Violence against women is fed by the mentality of abortion. We want protection for women and information given about fetal pain and development and the risks of abortion, including the increase for breast cancers. Women must be made aware of the dangers of RU-486 and the over-the-counter "Plan B". We will advocate for parental consent legislation to protect minors from adults, especially pedophiles, who take girls across state lines for abortions. Polls indicate large majorities of Americans are in agreement with these basic safeguards for women," said Mrs. Faranda.

For further information or interviews call Judith Anderson at 914-271-4627 or 329-5163, or Brigid Faranda at 914-271-4598 or 924-2061.

On January 22 between 12 Noon and 1 p.m., the annual Rally for Life will take place at All Women's Health and Medical Services at 222 Mamaroneck Avenue, witnessing for life on the streets of White Plains in front of the busy abortion facility in the heart of the city. On the same day as the 36th anniversary of legalized abortion on demand and the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Costanzo will again lead the local Rally for Life.

NAACP member, the Reverend Clenard H. Childress, Jr. of Black Genocide and L.E.A.R.N. is quoted, "The most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of their African-American mother." Abortion is the number one killer in the African-American community, higher than AIDS, violent crimes, accidents, cancer, and heart disease combined.

The irony is that Obama, soon to be the first African American President, was the most pro abortion U.S. Senator. His extremely radical vote in the Illinois State Senate in essence permitted infanticide by refusing medical intervention (Born Alive Infant Protection Act) for babies born alive after a failed abortion attempt. Add a campaign statement that if, despite moral lessons, his daughters became pregnant, he wouldn't want to "punish them with a baby". Pregnancies are now not the normal result of sexual intimacy, but rather "punishments" that abortions rectify? Abortions, however, do not rectify the sexually transmitted disease rates recently reported by Dr. John Douglas of the CDC as unacceptably high with Blacks, 12 percent of the U.S. population, accounting for about 70% of gonorrhea cases and almost half of the chlamydia and syphilisis cases. Black women ages 15 to 19 have the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea, with gonorrhea rates for blacks 19 times higher than for whites, according to the Center for Disease Control.

The prolife community is also energized as never before since one Obama's campaign promises to Planned Parenthood was to sign the radical Freedom of Choice Act as "one of the first things I'd do as President". FOCA would codify Roe vs. Wade and overturn hard fought for protections for women and the unborn. Even before this declaration, Obama had a vote of no confidence from those who support women victimized by "Big Abortion" - the billion-dollar abortion industry. Abortion has damaged women and denied human rights to 50 million and counting pre-born children. Abortion is the ultimate act of age discrimination.

Join the Rally for Life! For further information or interviews, call Elizabeth Costanzo 478-1189 or Judith Anderson 914-329-5163 or 271-4627.

The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. I expect many of us here, perhaps most of us here, can remember when we were first encountered by the idea. For me, it was in the 1960s when I was pastor of a very poor, very black, inner city parish in Brooklyn, New York. I had read that week an article by Ashley Montagu of Princeton University on what he called “A Life Worth Living.” He listed the qualifications for a life worth living: good health, a stable family, economic security, educational opportunity, the prospect of a satisfying career to realize the fullness of one’s potential. These were among the measures of what was called “a life worth living.”

And I remember vividly, as though it were yesterday, looking out the next Sunday morning at the congregation of St. John the Evangelist and seeing all those older faces creased by hardship endured and injustice afflicted, and yet radiating hope undimmed and love unconquered. And I saw that day the younger faces of children deprived of most, if not all, of those qualifications on Prof. Montagu’s list. And it struck me then, like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that illuminated our moral and cultural moment, that Prof. Montagu and those of like mind believed that the people of St. John the Evangelist—people whom I knew and had come to love as people of faith and kindness and endurance and, by the grace of God, hope unvanquished—it struck me then that, by the criteria of the privileged and enlightened, none of these my people had a life worth living. In that moment, I knew that a great evil was afoot. The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed.

In that moment, I knew that I had been recruited to the cause of the culture of life. To be recruited to the cause of the culture of life is to be recruited for the duration; and there is no end in sight, except to the eyes of faith.

Perhaps you, too, can specify such a moment when you knew you were recruited. At that moment you could have said, “Yes, it’s terrible that in this country alone 4,000 innocent children are killed every day, but then so many terrible things are happening in the world. Am I my infant brother’s keeper? Am I my infant sister’s keeper?” You could have said that, but you didn’t. You could have said, “Yes, the nation that I love is betraying its founding principles—that every human being is endowed by God with inalienable rights, including, and most foundationally, the right to life. But,” you could have said, “the Supreme Court has spoken and its word is the law of the land. What can I do about it?” You could have said that, but you didn’t. That horror, that betrayal, would not let you go. You knew, you knew there and then, that you were recruited to contend for the culture of life, and that you were recruited for the duration.

The contention between the culture of life and the culture of death is not a battle of our own choosing. We are not the ones who imposed upon the nation the lethal logic that human beings have no rights we are bound to respect if they are too small, too weak, too dependent, too burdensome. That lethal logic, backed by the force of law, was imposed by an arrogant elite that for almost forty years has been telling us to get over it, to get used to it.

But “We the People,” who are the political sovereign in this constitutional democracy, have not gotten over it, we have not gotten used to it, and we will never, we will never ever, agree that the culture of death is the unchangeable law of the land.

“We the People” have not and will not ratify the lethal logic of Roe v. Wade. ...

January 12, 2009

Rockland County pro-lifers are ahead of the curve when it comes to almost all pro-life action - whether it's helping women in crisis preganancies or political and on-the-street action to promote a culture of life.

"What rallies us at all times is the dignity and value of each and every person from conception to natural death," said the Rev. Brendan Gormley of St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church in Congers. "We realize life is a gift. We're called to treasure that life and respect it."

Buses will take Rockland residents to the event. One bus, which will carry students and parents from Albertus Magnus Catholic high school in Bardonia, is already reserved in full, said Stony Point resident Eileen Peterson, who is helping to organize the trips.

Another bus will leave from St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Spring Valley at 5:45 a.m. Seats are available.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $12 for students. People who can't afford the bus fare still are welcome, as people have donated money to "adopt a marcher," Peterson said.

Peterson called opposing abortion a "human rights issue," one that has been taken up by youth.

"This is no longer so much our cause anymore," Peterson said. "It's more the youth because they're the survivors of choice."

Mr. Weigel said of Father Neuhaus, “He was a philosopher and theologian of American democracy, and that is the bright line that links all” the stages of his life.

Father Neuhaus underwent several conversions in his life. He was born in Pembroke, Ontario, and emigrated to the United States, which he came to love fervently. He was a Lutheran minister, like his father, but at the age of 54 was ordained a Roman Catholic priest. Politically, he evolved from a liberal Democrat and admirer of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy to a conservative and occasional adviser to President Bush.

No matter which side he was on, Father Neuhaus was always a leader. The Rev. Max L. Stackhouse, a professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, said he first glimpsed Pastor Neuhaus marching in Selma, Ala., in a row of clergy members flanking the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“He thought that somebody ought to be out front carrying the ball, and he designated himself, and he was pretty good at it,” Dr. Stackhouse said. “He was not poverty-stricken when it came to confidence, and he did a lot of his homework and made judgments and felt very secure in them. He did enjoy controversy.”

In the 1960s, he was pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, a predominantly black and Hispanic Lutheran congregation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He was arrested at a sit-in at the New York City Board of Education headquarters, demanding integration of the public schools.

In 1968, Pastor Neuhaus was a delegate for Senator McCarthy to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. When the Chicago police clashed with demonstrators, he was among those arrested and tried for disorderly conduct.

Two years later, he made an unsuccessful bid to become the Democratic candidate for the Congressional seat representing the 14th District, in Brooklyn.

By the mid-1970s his ideas about the relationship between religion and politics were evolving. He helped write a theological statement criticizing churches for speaking out on secular social issues without sufficient attention to faith and spirituality.

He joined conservative clergy members in a campaign against the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, accusing the organizations of a taking a leftist approach to international affairs and cozying up to Marxist governments. He wrote the founding manifesto for the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a group that challenges mainline Protestant denominations it considers too liberal.

In 1990, after years of uneasiness in the Lutheran church, Father Neuhaus was accepted into the Catholic Church by Cardinal John O’Connor of New York in the chapel of the cardinal’s residence on Madison Avenue. A year later the cardinal ordained him a priest. Father Neuhaus insisted that his conversion was not so much political as theological. He said the goal of Martin Luther’s Reformation had always been a united Christian church.

“I have long believed that the Roman Catholic Church is the fullest expression of the church of Christ through time,” he said in an interview then.

Funeral Arrangements for Richard John Neuhaus

A Funeral Mass will be celebrated for Father Richard John Neuhaus at the Church of the Immaculate Conception—414 E. 14th Street, New York City—on Tuesday, January 13, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Bishops and priests who wish to attend are asked please to inform Nathaniel Peters (by e-mail or phone 212-627-2288) by Sunday afternoon, January 11, at the latest.

A Christian wake service in the form of a Vigil for the Deceased will be celebrated at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Monday evening, January 12, at 7:30 p.m. Clergy who plan to attend are asked to sit with the congregation.

In lieu of flowers, donations are requested for Fr. Neuhaus’ work, the Institute on Religion and Public Life, online at this page or by mail to:

Neuhaus was a superb, natural controversialist. His two regular columns in the magazine he founded and edited, First Things, commented on the overlapping topics of religion, culture, and politics both in long, thoughtful articles and in short, brilliant squibs. Both profound and witty, they were required reading for morally serious people. His wit was a vehicle for important truths, and some of his epigrams have entered the language.

Thus: “For the New York Times the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic.”

Or: “Whenever orthodoxy becomes optional, it will sooner or later be proscribed.”

Neuhaus never shrank from what he considered a necessary fight — even one with friends — when the issue was important enough. He abandoned his original allies on the Left over Roe v. Wade. On the same issue he later devoted a special issue of First Things to an attack on judicial supremacy that questioned whether an American political regime that tolerated mass abortions was a legitimate one. That formulation divided the Right and led to the Left inventing the term “theocons” to demonize him and the Christian conservatives. To the end of his life Neuhaus continued to fight passionately for the thousands of innocents we kill annually.

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We feel sorrow at his passing, but mainly for ourselves. He has gone to the Savior he served so well and faithfully. R.I.P.

For more information on Fr.'s life, there's already an obituary up on National Catholic Reporter (NCR) by John Allen. Unfortunately there's way too much of the "religious right", "progressive" politicalspeak, but then that's NCR's style.

SAN FRANCISCO, January 2, 2009 -- A billboard advertising the Walk for Life West Coast’s signature slogan “Abortion Hurts Women” is now displayed near the approach to one of the most traveled bridges in the U.S.

The San Francisco Walk, which drew 25,000 people last year, will be held this year on Saturday, January 24.

The 20-foot by 60-foot billboard is easily visible to the more than 100,000 cars driving the freeway daily on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge approach and includes a phone number for a post abortion help line.

The help line is staffed by women who have themselves experienced abortion, explained Walk for Life co-chair Eva Muntean.

The billboard went up December 31.

“San Francisco is a beautiful city but there is a lot of sadness beneath the surface -- until recently we had more abortions than live births, and a high percentage of our population has experienced abortion,” Ms. Muntean said. “We need to reach those women (and men) who are hurting, and this seemed like the most effective method.”

The billboard is located at Fourth and Bryant streets in San Francisco. The Bay Bridge carries approximately 270,000 cars a day, according to state Department of Transportation statistics.

Walk for Life West Coast was founded in 2005 and drew 8,000 people the first year. Each year the turnout has grown, and it draws walkers from along the Western Seaboard and from as far east as Florida and New York.

The brief article under "Religion Briefing," contained in the Dec. 7 Journal News, requires some response from one who is a full-time Catholic. The item relates to a California priest, the Rev. Joseph Illo, who urges those Catholics who have voted for candidate Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights, to confess and repent before receiving Holy Communion. Such stance has drawn him into conflict with his bishop, the Rev. Joseph Blaire, bishop of the Stockton Diocese. To quote Shakespeare: "Aye, there's the rub," has taken on a significant communication problem for Catholics.

A Nov. 20 item in the New York Catholic Archdiocesan newspaper reported on warnings by the Conference of Catholic Bishops against the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, which aims to codify Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Obviously, such warnings were rather late to have any effect on the passage of the recent presidential elections. Fault for lack of leadership rests on the heads of the higher echelons of the hierarchal elite. In short, the message is not getting through.

From personal observations, as a "non-cafeteria" Catholic, I witness the failure of various priests at the celebration of Mass who defer from current issues in their homilies. They prefer to stay with non-controversial issues such as: love thy neighbor; Moses receiving his special calling at the burning bush; clothe the naked; feed the hungry, etc., etc. Such teachings and beatitudes are acceptable to most right-thinking members of society.

However, issues that currently affect the spiritual welfare of Catholics such as abortion; stem-cell research; and experimentation and same-sex marriage are rarely, if ever, discussed. These are some of the things that should be stressed by Catholic clerics. Such tenets of the Church should guide the hands of parishioners in voting booths in a spirit of things to be voted against - not who should one vote for.

On January 2nd, the Wall Street Journal had an op ed by abortion researcher Anne Hendershott, author of "The Politics of Abortion".

Besides pointing to token Catholic Ms. Kennedy's support for abortion on demand and a few other repugnant items, the op ed touches on the history of formerly pro-life Democratic politicians who switched to the pro-abortion position, with the tacit support of some Catholic theologians in the 70's. Another case of "my party, right or wrong...". For a little bit more on this issue go here - Jesuit Edward Oakes gives a perspective on how we have gotten to where we are on life issues

The Journal op ed gives a succinct review and it is printed below the link -

For faithful Roman Catholics, the thought of yet another pro-choice Kennedy positioned to campaign for the unlimited right to abortion is discouraging. Yet if Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of Catholics John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton, abortion-rights advocates will have just such a champion.

Ms. Kennedy was so concerned to assure pro-abortion leaders in New York, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Dec. 18, that on the same day Ms. Kennedy telephoned New York Gov. David Patterson to declare interest in the Senate seat, "one of her first calls was to an abortion rights group, indicating she will be strongly pro-choice."

Within the first week of her candidacy, Ms. Kennedy promised to work for several causes, including same-sex marriage and abortion rights. In responding to a series of 15 questions posed by the New York Times on Dec. 21, Ms. Kennedy said that, while she believes "young women facing unwanted pregnancies should have the advice of caring adults," she would oppose legislation that would require minors to notify a parent before obtaining an abortion. On the crucial question of whether she supports any state or federal restrictions on late-term abortions, Ms. Kennedy chose to say only that she "supports Roe v. Wade, which prohibits third trimester abortions except when the life or health of the mother is at risk." Presumably Ms. Kennedy knows that this effectively means an unlimited right to abortion -- including late-stage abortion -- because the "health of the mother" can be so broadly defined that it includes the psychological distress that can accompany an unintended pregnancy.

Fr. Edward Oakes is a well regarded writer and seminary theology professor. The most recent issue of First Things published a letter from him, commenting on a feature written by Mary Eberstadt, on the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Of course the encyclical affirmed traditional Catholic teaching on contraception and the life issues and Eberstadt pointed to the failure to accept this teaching as a prime cause of our moral and social problems today.

Oakes' letter is in the most recent issue of First Things and current issues are not available online to non-subscribers (It will be available online when the February issue is current and the January issue is archived).

We are printing Oakes entire letter below. It is instructive about the bizarre approach some Catholic moral theologians took in the 1970's when it came to sexual ethics. As he points out, a publication of the Catholic Theological Society of America (1977) couldn't even bring itself to condemn bestiality!

I would like to add two small codicils to Mary Eberstadt’s magnificent jeremiad. I graduated from high school in June 1966 and entered the Society of Jesus in September of that same year. (I belonged to the last class in my province in which a majority of us entered right out of high school.) We, of course, were well aware that Paul VI would soon rule on the matter of contraception, but most of our energies were caught up in studying the documents of Vatican II, just out in Walter Abbott’s translation.

Even in my adolescent naivete back then, a sentence in Gaudium et Spes caught my eye: “Relying on these principles [of conjugal chastity and openness to children], sons of the Church may not undertake methods of regulating procreation which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law.”

Since that sentence carried a footnote citing Pius XI’s encyclical of 1910 Casti Connubii condemning artificial contraception, I could not understand the keyed-up expectations that Paul VI would overrule an ecumenical council. When I mentioned this discrepancy to my novice master, he said that the papal commission looking into the matter was convened solely to investigate whether the ovulation-regulating Pill was artificial (and thus banned) or could be seen on the order of diet and exercise that might make a woman’s fertility cycle more predictable, within the bounds of nature.

When the commission by a large majority voted in favor of the Pill, however, it did not do so on the basis of its brief from the pope. Rather, by approving of the Pill, it also went on to advocate the approval of all forms of artificial contraception. In other words, the members implicitly agreed that the Pill was artificial (in the technical sense, which was their mandate to determine), and therefore, since they wanted to approve it, they had to approve all other artificial methods as well. But such methods were already forbidden—not just by Popes Pius XI and XII but also by the liberals’ favorite Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes. As that document said in the next sentence: “Everyone should be persuaded that human life and the task of transmitting it are not realities bound up with this world alone. Hence they cannot be measured or perceived only in terms of it, but always have a bearing on the eternal destiny of man.”

This brings me to my second codicil: Dissent against the encyclical, above all in Catholic circles, was clearly premised on the commission’s view that the connection between sex and procreation ought to be, as it were, decoupled. Thus, once dissent had become institutionalized in chanceries and seminaries, all the props that promoted chastity (conjugal and clerical) collapsed, as Eberstadt devastatingly depicts. The best sign of that severance was, of course, the notorious Report on Human Sexuality, commissioned by the Catholic Theological Society of America, which could not even bring itself to condemn bestiality.

Eberstadt is obviously an aficionado of the darker shades of humor, so I offer her this twisted tidbit from the Report: “Sexual relations with animals is another form of behavior that is severely punished by some societies and commonly practiced or tolerated by others.” In contrast, so the Report laments, our hidebound Catholic Church comes down hard on such “commonly tolerated” practices: “Particularly with regard to sexuality, it was believed that there is a meaning intrinsic to the very nature of the act itself—a meaning that is absolutely unchangeable and in no way modifiable by extenuating circumstances of special context. Thus, masturbation, any premarital sexual pleasure, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, sodomy, and bestiality were considered intrinsically evil acts, seriously immoral, and under no circumstances justifiable.” But we have all grown out of such rigidities, these mandarins of the CTSA inform us: “Biblical, historical, and empirical evidence raise serious questions regarding such an approach.”

When the final history of the sex-abuse crisis finally comes to be written, the historian will have to devote at least one chapter to the role of mainstream theologians in this bizarre display of relativism and perhaps another chapter to how they used their expertise to browbeat bishops into taking a therapeutic, rather than moral and disciplinary, approach to wayward priests. To date—one is not surprised to learn—the members of the CTSA have yet to acknowledge their role in contributing to the malaise so vividly and instructively described by Eberstadt.

January 01, 2009

This is from the Director of Lumina, Help and Healing After Abortion, Theresa Bonopartis. Theresa is also a co-director of the Hudson Valley Coalition for Life

Obama

I find it so ironic that a campaign that professes to speak for women and their freedoms, will in fact, chain women to a life of regret by their extreme pro abortion policies. I also find it very sad, that so many have bought into the lies and truly believe by making abortion without limits we are doing a service for women.

Abortion is in fact, a grave injustice to women and their children. It has degraded the value of every life by abstract decisions of who will live and who will not. It has taken the welfare of minor children who become pregnant, out of the hands of parents who love them and into an industry that destroys life. The idea of freedom of choice has become the ultimate bondage for countless women as they mourn their unborn children, and for some, recognize that those were the only children they would ever have.

Abortion has secured the right of abandonment by men, and irresponsible behavior, making the sacred act of sexual union no more than a night at the movies, and women no more than sex objects. Sexual freedom has caused chains of disease and regret for a lifetime, often impacting future relationships and children. Women are now easily used, with consent, because they have fallen for the deceit of usage of words to fit an agenda that cares no more about them then the babies that are being killed in the womb. If they did, protections would be passed to truly ensure health of the mother, but each attempt made is rejected in the face of a fear of the overturning of Roe vs wade.

Protecting the right to abortion at any time, any way and for any reason has become more important than the women it has professed to protect. Abortion has become a god…the true God, giving life, the false god of abortion,taking it away.

These are truly sad and dark times. Abortion is not a womens right that has set her free, it has made her the object which she sought to get away from, only it has done it legally instead of in back alleys. It has fooled women into thinking they are in control, while all the time, they have been duped by a money making industry that seeks nothing but its own profit and satisfaction through destroying innocent life and countless families. In time the truth will win out, it always does, but I fear the many lives lost and the long suffering that will come as a result of this administration's extreme pro abortion policies. It will be as we have not seen before and no good could come out of the destruction it will leave in its path. My prayer is, that we continue to reach out to those suffering. That no matter what the cost or consequences, we continue to speak the truth in the face of the lies of abortion. May we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the way the truth and the life, knowing that the victory has already been won.